


But All The Thorns Remain.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Child Issues, Family, Grief, Moral Conundrum, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Organa died during the destruction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy. Ten years later, a man arrives on Coruscant, claiming to be Leia Organa's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But All The Thorns Remain.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [To Hope by Charlotte Smith](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/hope).

1.

Ben Organa died when he was fifteen years old. Ben Organa died when the Knights of Ren ambushed the academy. Ben Organa died, crawling away, his body broken.

Ben Organa arrives on Coruscant ten years later and goes to find his mother.

 

2.

Leia mourned her son like she mourned her planet: deeply, irrevocably, and never daring to lose herself in it. There was always too much to do, too many things that will not get done if she does not do them. She mourns them as a fact of her existence, etched deep in her bones. She misses them desperately and will never stop. She dreams of them both, of Ben and Alderaan. She wants to say she would do anything to get them back, but if Alderaan appeared in the sky again, Leia would never set foot on that planet. She knows when things are too good to be true.

Ben died. She knows that Ben died. She felt it in the Force. _Luke_ felt it in the Force. They never found the body, but they never found most of the bodies. Luke had tracked the Knights of Ren afterwards, desperate to know if they had kidnapped any of the students, if they had kidnapped Ben. He had not found any of them. There had been no trace.

Ben is dead, but someone who looks like him is standing before her, calling her his mother.

They've tested his blood, but clones can be grown from nearly nothing to become completely identical. The scar from the tracker that they had put into him as an infant -- easily faked. The memories could be implanted. There's no way to _know_.

She wouldn't walk on a newly returned Alderaan, but would she trust someone from it? This Ben has the Force, and they always need Jedi, especially now with the First Order ascendant.

This isn't her son. This can't be her son. But this could still be a Jedi.

It's not enough, but maybe it could be, someday.

 

3.

Luke comes, eventually. It's taking him longer and longer to respond; Leia has begun to worry that there may be a day she asks him to come and he never does. He has never truly recovered from losing his first students. (Leia has never truly recovered from losing Ben.)

Ben bows when he sees Luke, a deep respectful flourish. "Master Skywalker," he says. Leia had only ever visited the Academy as a parent. She had seen her brother and her son; she had never seen a Jedi Master and his apprentice. Luke accepts this from Ben like the teacher that he is, and Leia wonders if Ben wants to be a student once more. Ben's story of the intervening years has been full of smuggling himself away, of scrapping by, of being hidden and invisible and never asking questions. He could not explain why he had not come home, other than the lack of funds. But Leia's son would have known that Leia would always come for him, no matter where he was, no matter what it would take.

But Alderaan died because Leia could keep a secret. Perhaps Ben didn't trust his place in her priorities. Perhaps Ben had been beyond her grasp, perhaps he had been scared--

Luke takes her to the side. "He believes every word he says," Luke tells her, "but his memories of the time since I last saw him, I don't think they're real."

If they're not real, then they're deliberate. Someone wanted Ben confused. Someone wanted Ben to be able to lie well. Someone knew they had a mindreader.

If Leia were to believe this man to be her son, she would have to ask, "do you think someone has had him all this time?" And-- she doesn't believe. She cannot let herself believe. But nor can she think of her son possibly being kidnapped all these years, locked away from her, and she would never have known. This Ben is more subdued than her Ben had been. She remembers her son as someone with anger vibrating under his skin, quick to lash out, and even quicker to be ashamed of it. But the shame never lasted. The anger did. This Ben is quiet and wary, like he would be if his story were true. If he had truly spent the last ten years having to hide from everyone who would ever help him. If he had spent ten years learning to be small, to be quiet, and to hide in plain sight.

Luke looks troubled. "Implanting memories doesn't need the Force, but Ben, both our Ben and this Ben, are strong enough to break through that kind of conditioning. This would have had to be done with the Force." He shakes his head. "Ben would remember escaping."

"He was let go," Leia says.

"If he was held, then yes, I think he was let go," Luke says. Leia wished she didn't agree with him.

 

4.

Her son may be a sleeper agent and may not be her son. Her son has been held captive for a decade and does not know his own history. Leia has no way of knowing what happened to him.

He might still be a clone. There would be no reason for this unknown enemy to risk sending back the original, not when a clone would work as well. For whatever purpose Ben was sent to them, a clone would have done as well.

Luke has his suspicions of who has the power to hold Ben against his will, and they are in tune with Leia's. The First Order's Supreme Leader had the motive, he had the opportunity, and he commands the Knights of Ren. He could have held Ben all this time. He could have erased Ben's memories. He could have let Ben go.

"The First Order does not have cloning technology," Han says. After Ben's death, he threw himself back into his smuggler existence and Leia has rarely seen him, but his contacts have become invaluable sources of information. Han can barely stand to be in the same room as this returned Ben. He says it makes his brain itch, like when Luke is meditating. Han is Force-sensitive in the way the best pilots are: unconsciously, and with no ability to use it intentionally. Leia doesn't pick up the same thing from Ben, but when she tries to feel Ben through the Force, she thinks she understands what Han is picking up. There's a confusion around Ben. It's as if the Force doesn't know what to do with him. 

There's something very wrong with Ben.

And it's been a full month now, and Ben is still waiting, watchful and silent, as his family decides what is to be done with him. Luke has tried meditating with him, but Ben can't. There's something blocking him. When Ben tries to go into his own mind, it doesn't work.

Something is very wrong.

 

5.

Ben Organa wakes up one morning and looks around. There is a lightsaber on his floor. He does not know how it got there. He knows he built it. He turns it on. Its blade is pure green. He gives it a few experimental swings.

The door opens. Uncle Luke steps through.

"We're in your dreams," Uncle Luke says.

Ben sits down on the bed. "Oh," he says, disappointed. "I thought it was going to be just us today, not with the others. You know I hate meditating with them. They hate me."

"They don't hate you," Uncle Luke says, but, then, he always says that. It's just a reflex, it's nothing _true_. "Is it okay if I go beyond you? We need to see what's going on in your head."

"Did I fall into a ysalamiri coma again?" Ben asks. He hates when that happens. Uncle Luke keeps them around for training, but Ben is always very sensitive to them, much more than Uncle Luke's other apprentices. Ben thinks it's because he's so off-balance in the Force. Take the Force away and his brain goes into hyperspace to try to compensate and his body just can't handle it. Uncle Luke says it will get better if Ben meditates more, if he learns to feel the Force as a Jedi. Right now, Ben mostly fights the Force. He can tell Uncle Luke doesn't know what to do with him.

Uncle Luke doesn't answer. When Ben looks up, Uncle Luke's gone. Ben's not surprised.

 

6.

Luke walks the other way through the door and finds Kylo Ren.

 

7.

Leia listens as Luke tells her what he's found in Ben's mind. That the memories are repressed, that they had guessed. But, "you are sure it's definitely my Ben?"

"It's definitely Ben," Luke agrees. "But it's Ben as he was at eleven, twelve, before the attack and before he..." Luke trails off. Leia knows the rest. Before Ben got worse. Before Ben's temper first hurt someone. Before Luke started to worry that he couldn't reach Ben at all. "The rest of his memories are hidden from him." He hesitates. "There doesn't seem to be any... damage. I don't think he was brainwashed. Snoke tortures his apprentices, but he kills the ones who challenge him too much; he doesn't make them obey."

"And we can't keep his memories hidden from him forever," she says, if only to make it very clear to herself that that is something they could never do. That she shouldn't even be tempted about. She misses her Ben, but she would never want him stuck as he was, never allowed to change. But Kylo Ren... they had heard rumors of Kylo Ren, Snoke's powerful young apprentice, but no one had ever seen him. He remained masked in public like all of Snoke's Knights. Intelligence believed there were fewer Knights than First Order propaganda stated; after all, all it would take is for one of them to change a mask to become a new person. And if one of them died, well, a mask is a mask. A cloning program without the clones. All Snoke required were raw materials. All he required were students.

And he had taken Ben and turned him into this weapon, this Knight who obeyed his every order. Even if that meant going back to his family. Even if that meant being welcomed back in as a lost child. Even if that meant betraying and killing them all.

"The wall isn't built to be permanent and probably can't be made that way," Luke agrees, because that's right, if Snoke were going to send his prized apprentice in as a sleeper agent, he would never want there to be any way of keeping Kylo Ren locked away forever. Snoke would be wary of what Luke could do and would make plans. "As for if I could do something else to make it permanent, I would never try."

Leia understands. Having Ben back has always been a foolish hope, a desperate hope. If she could have Ben back-- but she can never have Ben back. They lost Ben when they did not find him after the massacre. They lost Ben when he grew up to be Snoke's apprentice. They lost Ben a long time ago.

But three floors away, she has Kylo Ren.

She just doesn't know what to do about that.

 

8.

Ben is not a construct; there is no difference between him and Kylo Ren except for time. The only thing preventing Leia's son from being Ren right now are his locked-away memories. And, inevitably, Snoke will trigger them and have Kylo Ren appear in their midst. To betray them, to kill them, to take the Republic down from the inside. It will happen. They do not know when.

But they can take Ben's walls down now. They can make it happen in a time and place they can control. They can disrupt Snoke's plan.

They don't take much. Han flies them to an out-of-the-way moon. They secure the Falcon in a ysalamiri bubble and then Luke tears down the walls in Ben's head that keep him from his own mind.

Leia waits for a dramatic blow-up, for Kylo Ren to appear from behind her son's eyes. She doesn't know what she's expecting to see; something dark, something that will make her understand why Ben did this. Why Ben chose to do this.

Ben doesn't move for a long time and, when he does, his eyes are perfectly blank and controlled. There's a hint of anger in the set of his chin, but Ben, when he was still Ben, was nearly constantly angry. This beaten-down man of the last two months has been an anomaly, a lie told to them by Snoke. _This_ is her Ben, ten years older, ten years more experienced in the Force, ten years beyond their reach.

"Mother, Father, Uncle Luke," Ben says, nodding to each of them. "Interesting vacation spot."

"You know us," Han says. "We're all about privacy."

Ben smiles tightly and then completely ignores his parents. "I know what you want," he says to Luke. "You know this won't work. I let them in. I betrayed you. _I_ did that. That was _me_. There isn't anything you can say or do to me to erase that. You may as well execute me now for my crimes. I'm not sorry for any of them. There's nothing Light in me anymore."

"There is always time to make a different choice," Luke says. "Vader did."

Ben rolls his eyes. "Vader was _dying_. I've murdered for Snoke. Would you like the details? Do you want to know everything I've done for him? You wouldn't be so forgiving then."

"We've had reports from the First Order. We know what Kylo Ren has done," Leia says. They certainly don't know all of it, but they know enough.

"And? You don't forgive me, you'd never forgive _me_. You don't _want_ me. It's Ben that you want. But, Mother, Ben never existed. You had this absurd fantasy of your son, but it was never true. I was never going to be a Jedi. I was always going to leave. I was always going to choose another path." Ben puts his hands together, gripping his fingers tightly, and Leia can feel the Force gather. Ben always had so much anger in him and Leia can feel it now all around her.

She gives the signal to Chewbacca and the entire room is cut off from the Force.

 

9.

"This would go a lot better if he didn't know that, no matter which way he jumped, we'd have to turn him over to stand trial for war crimes," Han says to Leia. "Because, let me tell you, that kid in there is not listening to us, and I'm not sure what incentive we're offering him other than family. Which he's rejected. A lot."

Ben's always known how to play his parents against each other, and Leia and Han have already had two screaming fights while they've been here. Leia can barely look at Han right now. "If he's willing to turn traitor on the First Order, the Republic won't want to lose that intelligence," Leia says. "We still have protocols in place for defectors from the Empire. If nothing else, we're used to this." But a Sith Lord in custody, resisting them the entire time... no one has experience with that. But they can't erase what Ben's done, they can't erase how they all failed him. Luke would remind her that Ben made choices and kept making choices, never choosing to turn back, but all Leia can think of is Ben's face on the day she sent him to train with Luke. Is that when she lost him? Is that when he decided to leave? 

Luke buries his hands in his robe. "I don't think he has any loyalty to the First Order. Just Snoke. If he's willing to come back to the Light, he'll want to make thing right. If he's not, he's still a lord of Ren, and has to answer for it."

"So what do we tell him?" Han asks.

"We keep telling him the truth," Leia says. "We don't have any other coin to bargain with."

"The truth _isn't working_ ," Han says.

Leia knows. "Then nothing is going to."

 

10.

On the fourth day, the Knights of Ren arrive for their lost son. Leia wonders if it took that long for Snoke to realize that Ben had dropped out of the Force, or if it was only that long for Snoke to decide to abandon his first plan.

The Knights go straight for Luke. Leia goes for her blaster, Han and Chewie go to the Falcon to provide air support. This, this is what Leia's been waiting for, this is what's been humming under her skin since Ben came back to them. Finding out Ben was Kylo Ren, finding out that Ben regretted none of this actions -- this has all led to this. The dead don't just come back to life. Everything has a cost. She wished for Ben back a thousand times, and this is the Ben she got back. And even this Ben, even this man who refuses to be the son whose return she longed for, even this Ben, she cannot keep. She will not let him go easily, but he was lost to her a long time ago.

The battle is long and hard, but then, as the sun begins to drift below the horizon, Ben roars out of the cabin, his lightsaber in his grasp, and he shouts at the Knights to retreat. "That's an order from your master," he snarls at them.

And in that moment, he reminds Leia of her mother so much, her chest aches. She keeps firing anyway, looking for cover and opportunities, but the Knights make it to the shuttle, abandoning their two dead members. The Falcon gives chase, but it's been damaged in the cross-fire.

And, like that, Ben is gone.

The cabin is in ruins, so they stay in the Falcon overnight. Leia finds Luke in the cargo bay, contemplating his lightsaber. He looks up when she enters. "We've done what we could," Luke says. "There's more light in him now than there was before. Maybe it will be enough. Seeds can grow in the harshest of conditions."

"If they aren't weeded out by Snoke first," Leia says.

Luke nods. He looks grim. "Yes. We have to hope."

Leia's lived on hope for a long time. She's lost her family, her planet, her son. She's gained a revolution, a republic, and a new life.

Ben will come back, or he won't come back. They'll find him and bring him home, or they won't. There's still a war to fight, and in Leia's life, there's always been a war to fight. They involve blasters, politics, and always, everywhere, death and painful choices.

"If he comes back, we'll be ready." If he's penitent. If he's come to kill them all. It doesn't matter. Leia's son is, finally, alive. And where there's life, Leia knows, there's a war still to fight.


End file.
